First person you have to fool is yourself.

That's the whole problem here - they are trying just as hard to convince themselves they are doing the "right thing" by focusing security on all these little details as they are on selling it to anyone else. No matter how many different little preventative measures you take, someone is going to find a way around them. For that matter, even if you made air travel itself perfectly safe, then you still have outside factors - security in airports, trains, or just things to target aircraft from the ground or other aircraft. There is no way to prevent every possibility. Unpredictable Security Measures are not about more security, they are about propaganda.

When so much emphasis is placed by the government and TSA on the propaganda war, they are seriously neglecting the actual security issue, which is watching out for unusual activity, and more importantly, stopping the whole terrorism game before it even gets to terrorists. he only way you are going to stop the terrorists is to make terrorism itself more detrimental to their cause than helpful. This time they didn't blow up a plane. but they still achieved the same results - they created chaos, disruption, and caused people to be that much more disinclined to fly. If these acts stop creating that effect for them, there no longer is a purpose in them doing it.